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Health Care Reform - Six Months In

Starting on September 23, health insurance plans will be required to fully cover some preventive care benefits (which will be touted as “free,” despite the fact that they’re not), cover dependent children up to age 26, and will be prohibited from placing lifetime limits on coverage. But as The Wall Street Journal oh-so-carefully notes, those “choices are expected to be more complicated and expensive as employers try to comply with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which will be phased in over a few years.” All those new benefits, the Journal explains, come at the price of “higher premiums, co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses, according to industry surveys.” You can add fewer coverage choices to that list, too; some insurers are responding by chucking certain types of coverage; Anthem, for example, is dropping child-only policies on the same day that the new benefits kick in.